The Necessity of Faith to Obtain Mercy from God

January 25, 1998 ~ Pickering
Standard Church

Faith is the means by which we
lay hold of the promises of God, it is through faith that we understand the
requirements of a relationship with God. We read in Hebrews chapter 11
evidence that this is so:

Hebrews 11:4-12

By faith Abel offered unto God a
more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was
righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found,
because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this
testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is
impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he
is, and
that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. By faith
Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared
an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and
became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. By faith Abraham, when
he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an
inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By
faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country,
dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same
promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder
and maker is God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength
to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because
she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of
one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in
multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.

Let
us look specifically at the case of Abraham and Sarah with respect to the birth
of their son Isaac. In Genesis 15 God speaks to Abraham, then about 70
years in age, that he and his wife will have a son. We will look at the
importance played by their faith in the eventual birth of Isaac when Abraham was
100 years old and Sarah 90.

Genesis 15:1-6

After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying,
Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.
And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the
steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said,
Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine
heir. And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This
shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels
shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now
toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said
unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he
counted it to him for righteousness.

We see here we that Abraham, even though he was well past the age at which men
have sons born to them, believed the promise of God concerning the birth of a
son, and that God accounted this belief as righteousness before God. He
simply took God at His word in spite of the surprise which the promise doubtless
caused in Abraham. Our bible passage from earlier affirms that:

Hebrews 11:6

without faith it is
impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he
is, and
that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Two points come into view here:

1/ That those that come to God
must believe that He exists. Abraham had no doubt about God’s existence,
his entire life was oriented around God’s revelation of Himself to Abraham.

2/ That He rewards those who
diligently seek Him.Abraham gives example of his diligence when he rescues Lot
from the kings that captured Sodom and Gomorrah and the king of Sodom tries to
give him a reward:

Genesis 14:21-24

And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods
to thyself. And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand
unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will
not
take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any
thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:
Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which
went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.

God had made certain promises to Abraham when He first called him from out of
Haran:

Genesis 12:1

Now the LORD had said unto Abram,
Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house,
unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation,
and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in
thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

In the scripture regarding the king of Sodom we see Abraham’s willing dependance
upon God to maintain his life and method of living. In his letter to the
Roman Christians Paul gives a wonderful exposition of the faith in God with
which Abraham lived:

Romans 4:13-22

For the promise, that he should
be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law,
but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law
be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: Because
the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise
might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that
also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (As it
is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he
believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be
not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might
become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall
thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body
now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of
Sara's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that,
what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was
imputed to him for righteousness.

Abraham understood the nature of
the God who had made these promises to him, that it was impossible for God to
lie to him, or to tell him things in an effort to tease him. Abraham’s
understanding of the character of God allowed him to believe that God’s promises
were trustworthy.

Paul in Hebrews writes:

Hebrews 6:18

That by two immutable things, in
which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who
have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.

Essentially stating that when God
gives His word there is great and significant reason to find comfort in His
promise. The picture is of people running to God for refuge and taking
hold of His offered salvation on the basis of the strength of His promise.
James in his letter encourages us to ask God for what we need with the
expectation that God will provide what is needed. Again emphasizing
that we can trust God to supply our needs.

James 1:5-7

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men
liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask
in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea
driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall
receive any thing of the Lord.

And example of some who have seen God and still not had the faith that He would
keep His promises is given in Psalm 78 in reference to the wandering in the
wilderness of the Israelites:

Psalm 78:9-22

The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned
back in the day of battle. They kept not the covenant of God, and refused
to walk in his law; And forgat his works, and his wonders that he had shewed
them. Marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers, in the land
of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. He divided the sea, and caused them
to pass through; and he made the waters to stand as an heap. In the
daytime also he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire.
He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of
the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused
waters to run down like rivers. And they sinned yet more against him by
provoking the most High in the wilderness. And they tempted God in their
heart by asking meat for their lust. Yea, they spake against God; they
said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Behold, he smote the
rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed; can he give bread
also? can he provide flesh for his people? Therefore the LORD heard
this, and was wroth: so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also
came up against Israel; Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his
salvation:

Any of us here who have children
have encountered the same situation in children who do not fully believe that
provision will always be made for their basic needs of life and so they ask
their parents repeatedly for something which has always been provided in the
past and for which no indication has ever been given that such provision would
cease in the future. Eventually children learn that they can entirely
trust their parents to provide for them such things as are of benefit to them
and so they learn to take us at our word. The Israelites mentioned earlier
against whom God’s anger rose put God to the test because the continually
refused to believe that He would care for them. In spite of the repeated
evidence that showed that God would provide all their needs they constantly
complained about the situation in which they found themselves. They
allowed the reality of their desert surroundings to overwhelm their belief in
the power of God to overcome all obstacles.

In Deuteronomy we read these
astounding words:

Deuteronomy 29:5

And I have led you forty years in
the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not
waxen old upon thy foot.

Now this overwhelms our sense of
reality as even in our protected environment we must repeatedly purchase
clothing and shoes to replace those that wear out. Yet the Israelites, we
are told, had clothes and shoes that lasted throughout the wandering in the
wilderness, a period of forty years! We do well to wonder how people in
such a situation could possibly doubt that God could do what He said He would do
and yet we are often in a similar situation ourselves.